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THE HEART OF A WOMAN
BY BARONESS ORCZY
AUTHOR OF "THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL," "PETTICOAT RULE," ETC.
HODDER & STOUGHTONNEW YORKGEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
Copyright, 1911,By George H. Doran Company
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGEI.--WHICH TELLS OF A VERY COMMONPLACE INCIDENT 3II.--ONCE MORE THE OBVIOUS 14III.--AND NOW ALMOST LIKE A DREAM 17IV.--NOTHING REALLY TANGIBLE 32V.--JUST AN OBVIOUS DUTY 39VI.--JUST A DISAGREEABLE OLD MAN 46VII.--THE PART PLAYED BY A FIVE-POUND NOTE 50VIII.--AND THUS THE SHADOW DESCENDED 59IX.--WHICH TELLS OF THE INEVITABLE RESULT 65X.--LIFE MUST GO ON JUST THE SAME 72XI.--AND THERE ARE SOCIAL DUTIES TO PERFORM 84XII.--SHALL A MAN ESCAPE HIS FATE? 92XIII.--THEY HAVE NO HEART 95XIV.--THE TALE HAD TO BE TOLD 105XV.--AND MANY MUST BE QUESTIONED 112XVI.--AND THE PUPPETS DANCED 120XVII.--AND WHAT OF THE SECRET? 125XVIII.--IT WOULD NOT DO, YOU KNOW 132XIX.--NOT ALL ABOUT IT 138XX.--AND THAT'S THE TRUTH 149XXI.--HAVE ANOTHER CIGAR 156XXII.--THEN THE MIRACLE WAS WROUGHT 167XXIII.--WHY ALL THIS MYSTERY? 179XXIV.--A HERD OF CACKLING GEESE 183XXV.--THE FOG WAS DENSE, I COULDN'T RIGHTLY SEE 191XXVI.--THE NEXT WITNESS, PLEASE 199XXVII.--AND PEOPLE WENT OUT TO LUNCHEON 205XXVII.--WHICH TELLS OF AN UNEXPECTED TURN OF EVENTS 216XXIX.--THE WORLD IS SO LARGE 223XXX.--AND THEN EVERY ONE WENT HOME 233XXXI.--AND THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO DO NOT CARE 237XXXII.--A MAN MUST ACT AS HE THINKS BEST 244XXXIII.--IF YOU WOULD ONLY LET YOURSELF GO 249XXXIV.--WHICH SPEAKS ONLY OF FAREWELLS 261XXXV.--WHICH TELLS OF PICTURES IN THE FIRE 268XXXVI.--PEOPLE DON'T DO THAT SORT OF THING 274XXXVII.--IT IS ONE HUMAN LIFE AGAINST THE OTHER 287XXXVIII.--THE HAND OF DEATH WAS ON HIM TOO 292XXXIX.--A MERE WOMAN FIGHTING FOR THE THING SHE LOVED 300XL.--AND THUS HER HOUR HAD COME 310XLI.--WHICH TELLS OF THE CONTENTS OF THE NOTE BOOK 313XLII.--WHICH TELLS ONCE MORE OF COMMONPLACE INCIDENTS 319
THE HEART OF A WOMAN
BARONESS ORCZY
CHAPTER I
WHICH TELLS OF A VERY COMMONPLACE INCIDENT
No! No! she was not going to gush!--Not even though there was nothingin the room at this moment to stand up afterward before her as dumbwitness to a moment's possible weakness. Less than nothing in fact:space might have spoken and recalled that moment . . . infinitenothingness might at some future time have brought back the memory ofit . . . but these dumb, impassive objects! . . . the fountain penbetween her fingers! The dull, uninteresting hotel furniture coveredin red velvet--an uninviting red that repelled dreaminess and peace!The ormolu clock which had ceased long ago to mark the passage oftime, wearied--as it no doubt was, poor thing--by the monotonousburden of a bronze Psyche gazing on her shiny brown charms, in anutterly blank and unreflective bronze mirror, while obviouslybemoaning the fracture of one of her smooth bronze thighs! IndeedLouisa might well have given way to that overmastering feeling ofexcitement before all these things. They would neither see nor hear.They would never deride, for they could never remember.
But a wood fire crackled on the small hearth . . . and . . . and thosecitron-coloured carnations were favourite flowers of his . . . and hispicture did stand on the top of that ugly little Louis Philippe bureau. . . No! No! it would never do to gush, for these things would see .. . and, though they might not remember, they would remind.
And Louisa counted herself one of the strong ones of this earth. Justthink of her name. Have you ever known a Louisa who gushed? who calledherself the happiest woman on earth? who thought of a man--just anordinary man, mind you--as the best, the handsomest, the truest, themost perfect hero of romance that ever threw a radiance over theentire prosy world of the twentieth century?
Louisas, believe me, do no such things. The Mays and the Floras, theLady Barbaras and Lady Edithas, look beatific and charming when,clasping their lily-white hands together and raising violet eyes tothe patterned ceiling paper above them, they exclaim: "Oh, my hero andmy king!"
But Louisas would only look ridiculous if they behaved like that . . .Louisa Harris, too! . . . Louisa, the eldest of three sisters, thedaughter of a wealthy English gentleman with a fine estate in Kent, anassured position, no troubles, no cares, nothing in her life to makeit sad, or sordid or interesting . . . Louisa Harris and romance! . .. Why, she was not even pretty. She had neither violet eyes nor hairof ruddy gold. The latter was brown and the former were gray. . . .How could romance come in the way of gray eyes, and of a girl namedLouisa?
Can you conceive, for instance, one of those adorable detrimentals oflow degree and empty pocket who have a way of arousing love in thehearts of the beautiful daughters of irascible millionaires, can youconceive such an interesting personage, I say, falling in love withLouisa Harris?
I confess that I cannot. To begin with, dear, kind Squire Harris wasnot altogether a millionaire, and not at all irascible, and pennilessowners of romantic personalities were not on his visiting list.
Therefore Louisa, living a prosy life of luxury, got up every morning,ate a copious breakfast, walked out with the dogs, hunted in theautumn, skated in the winter, did the London season, and played tennisin the summer, just as hundreds and hundreds of other well-born,well-bred English girls of average means, average positions, averageeducation, hunt, dance, and play tennis throughout the length andbreadth of this country.
There was no room for romance in such a life, no time for it. . . .The life itself was so full already--so full of the humdrum of dailyrounds, of common tasks, that the heart which beat with such ordinaryregularity in the seemingly ordinary breast of a very ordinary girldid so all unconscious of the intense pathos which underlay this veryordinary existence.
Vaguely Louisa knew that somewhere, beyond even the land of dreams,there lay, all unknown, all mysterious, a glorious world of romance: auniverse peopled by girlish imaginings, and the sensitive, creatingthoughts of poets, by the galloping phantasies of super-excitedbrains, and the vague longings of ambitious souls: a universe whereindwelt alike the memories of those who have loved and the hopes ofthose who suffer. But when she thought of it all, she did so as onewho from the arid plain gazes on the cool streams and golden minaretswhich the fairy Fata Morgana conjures on the horizon far away. Shelooked on it as all unreal and altogether beyond her ken. She shut hereyes to the beautiful mirage, her heart against its childishyearnings.
Such things did not exist. They were not for her--Louisa Harris. Thelittle kitchenmaid at the court who, on Sunday evenings, went offgiggling, her chubby face glowing with pride and the result of recentablutions, on the arm of Jim the third gardener, knew more about thatworld of romance than well-bred, well-born young ladies ever dreamedof in their commonplace philosophy.
And Louisa Harris had always shut down the book which spoke of suchimpossible things, and counted herself one of the strong ones of theearth.
Therefore now, with Luke's letter in her hand, in which he tells herin a very few words that he loves her beyond anything on earth, a
ndthat he only waits the day when he can call her his own, his very owndearly loved wife, why should Louisa--prosy, healthy-minded,healthy-bodied Louisa--suddenly imagine that the whole world istransfigured?--that the hotel room is a kind of ante-chamber toheaven?--that the red velvet, uncompromising chairs are clouds of aroseate hue and that the bronze Psyche with the broken thigh is theelusive fairy who, with Morgana-like wand, hath conjured up thismirage of glorious visions which mayhap would vanish again beforelong?
She went up to the window and rested her forehead against the coolpane. She might be ever so strong, she could not help her foreheadfeeling hot and her eyes being full of tears--tears that did not hurtas they fell.
Outside the weather was indeed prosy and commonplace. Rain was comingdown in torrents and beating against the newspaper kiosk over the way,on the roofs of tramways and taxi-autos, making the electric lightpeep dimly through the veil of wet, drowning, by its incessant patter,to which the gusts of a November gale made fitful if loudaccompaniment, the shouts of the _cochers_ on their boxes, the rattleof wheels on the stone pavement, even at times the shrill whistle forcabs emanating from the porch of the brilliantly lighted Palace Hotel.
It was close on half-past six by the clock of the Gare du Nordopposite. The express from Ostend had just come in--very late ofcourse, owing to the gale which had delayed the mail boat. Louisa,straining her eyes, watched the excited crowd pouring out of thestation in the wake of porters and of piles of luggage, jabbering,shouting, and fussing like an army of irresponsible pigmies: men inblouses, and men in immaculate bowler hats, women wrapped in furs,clinging to gigantic headgear that threatened to leave the safe refugeof an elaborate coiffure or of well fixed gargantuan hatpins,midinettes in fashionable skirts and high-heeled shoes, country womenin wool shawls that flapped round their bulky forms like the wings ofan overfed bat, all hurrying and jostling one another in a madendeavour to avoid the onrush of the innumerable taxi-autos which inuncountable numbers wound in and out of the slower moving traffic likethe erratic thread of some living, tangled skein.
Just the every-day prosy life of a small but ambitious capitalstruggling in the midst of an almost overpowering sense ofresponsibility toward the whole of Europe in view of its recent greatColonial expansion.
Louisa gave an impatient sigh.
Even the strong ones of the earth get wearied of the daily round, thecommon task at times. She and aunt were due to dine at the BritishEmbassy at eight o'clock; it was only half-past six now and obviouslyimpossible to sit another two hours in this unresponsive hotel room inthe company of red velvet chairs and the bronze Psyche.
Aunt, in conjunction with her maid Annette, was busy laying thefoundations of an elaborate toilette. Louisa was free to do as shepleased. She got a serviceable ulster and a diminutive hat and salliedforth into the streets. She did not want to think or to dream, norperhaps did she altogether wish to work off that unusual feeling ofexcitement which had so unaccountably transformed her ever sinceLuke's letter had come.
All she wanted was to be alone, and to come out of herself for awhile.She had been alone all the afternoon, save for that brief half hourwhen aunt discussed the obvious over a badly brewed cup of tea: it wasnot that kind of "alone-ness" which Louisa wanted now, but rather thesolitude which a crowded street has above all the power to give.
There is a kind of sociability in any room, be it ever souncompromising in the matter of discomfort, but a crowded street canbe unutterably lonely, either cruelly so or kindly as the case may be.
To Louisa Harris, the commonplace society girl, accustomed to teafights, to dances and to dinner parties, the loneliness of thiscrowded little city was eminently welcome. With her dark ulsterclosely buttoned to the throat, the small hat tied under her chin,with everything on her weather-proof and unfashionable, she attractedno notice from the passers-by.
Not one head was turned as, with a long breath of delight, she salliedforth from under the portico of the hotel out into the muddy, busystreet; not one glance of curiosity or interest so freely bestowed inthe streets of foreign capitals on a solitary female figure, if it beyoung and comely, followed this very ordinary-looking English miss.
To the crowd she was indifferent. These men and women hurrying along,pushing, jostling, and scurrying knew nothing of Luke, nor that she,Louisa Harris, was the happiest woman on earth.
She turned back toward the Boulevard, meaning to take a brisk walk allalong the avenue of trees which makes a circuit round the inner partof the town and which ultimately would lead her back to the Gare duNord and the Palace Hotel. It was a walk she had often done before:save for one or two busy corners on the way, it would be fairlysolitary and peaceful.
Louisa stepped out with an honest British tread, hands buried in thepockets of her serviceable ulster, head bent against the sudden gustsof wind. She did not mind the darkness of the ill-lighted, wideboulevard, and had every intention of covering the two miles in alittle more than half an hour.
How the time sped! It seemed as if she had only just left the hotel,and already surely not a quarter of a mile away she could seeglimmering the lights of the Place Namur, the half-way point of herwalk.
She was in the Boulevard Waterloo where private houses with closedporte-cocheres add nothing to the municipal lighting of thethoroughfare.
Trams had been rushing past her in endless succession: but now therewas a lull. Close by her a taxi-auto whizzed quickly past and came toa standstill some hundred yards away, near the pavement, and not farfrom an electric light standard.
Louisa, with vacant eyes attached on that cab, but with her mind fixedon a particular room in a particular house in Grosvenor Square wherelived a man of the name of Luke de Mountford, continued her walk.Those same vacant eyes of hers presently saw the chauffeur of thetaxi-auto get down from his box and open the door of the cab, and thenher absent mind was suddenly brought back from Grosvenor Square,London, to the Boulevard Waterloo in Brussels, by a terrible cry ofhorror which had broken from that same chauffeur's lips. InstinctivelyLouisa hurried on, but, even as she did so, a small crowd which indeedseemed to have sprung from nowhere had already gathered round thevehicle.
Murmurs of "What is it? What is it?" mingled with smothered groans ofterror, as curiosity caused one or two of the more bold to peer intothe gloomy depths of the cab. Shrill calls brought a couple of_gardiens_ to the spot. In a moment Louisa found herself a unit in aneager, anxious crowd, asking questions, conjecturing, wondering,horror-struck as soon as a plausible and graphic explanation came fromthose who were in the fore-front and were privileged to see.
"A man--murdered----"
"But how?"
"The chauffeur got down from his box . . . and looked in . . . ah,_mon Dieu_!"
"What did he see?"
"A man . . . he is quite young . . . only about twenty years of age."
"Stabbed through the neck----"
"Stabbed?--Bah?"
"Right through the neck I tell you . . . just below the ear. I can seethe wound, quite small as if done with a skewer."
"_Allons! Voyons! Voyons!_" came the gruff accents from the two portly_gardiens_ who worked vigorously with elbows and even feet to keep thecrowd somewhat at bay.
Louisa was on the fringe of the crowd. She could see nothing ofcourse--she did not wish to see that which the chauffeur saw whenfirst he opened the door of his cab--but she stood rooted to the spot,feeling that strange, unexplainable fascination which one alwaysfeels, when one of those great life dramas of which one reads so oftenand so indifferently happens to be enacted within the close range ofone's own perception.
She gleaned a phrase here and there--saw the horror-stricken faces ofthose who had seen, the placid, bovine expression of the two_gardiens_, more inured to such sights and calmly taking notes by thelight of the electric standard.
"But to think that I drove that rascally murderer in my cab, and puthim down safe and sound not ten minutes ago!" came with the adjunct ofa loud oath from the irate chauffeur.
"How did it all occur?"
The _gardiens_ tried to stem the flow of the driver's eloquence; suchdetails should first be given to the police. _Voyons!_ But what weretwo fat _mouchards_ against twenty stalwart idlers all determined tohear--and then there were the women--they were determined to knowmore.
Louisa bent her ear to listen. She was just outside the crowd--not apart of it--and there was no really morbid curiosity in her. It wasonly the call of the imagination which is irresistible on theseoccasions--the prosy, matter-of-fact, high-bred girl could not, justthen, tear herself away from that cab and the tragedy which had beenenacted therein, in the mysterious darkness whilst the unconsciousdriver sped along, ignorant of the gruesome burden which he wasdragging to its destination.
"_Voila!_" he was saying with many ejaculations and expletives, and avolley of excited gestures. "Outside the _Parc_ near the theatre twobourgeois hailed me, and one of them told me to draw up at the top ofthe Galerie St. Hubert, which I did. The same one--the one who hadtold me where to go--got out, clapped the door to and spoke a fewwords to his friend who had remained inside."
"What did he say?"
"Oh! I couldn't hear and I didn't listen. But after that he told me todrive on to Boulevard Waterloo No. 34 and here I am."
"You suspected nothing?"
"Nothing, how should I? Two bourgeois get into my cab; I see nothing;I hear nothing. One of them gets out and tells me to drive on farther.How should I think there's anything wrong?"
"What was the other man like? The one who spoke to you?"
"_Ma foi!_ I don't know. . . . It was raining so fast and pitch darkjust outside the _Parc_ lights--and he did seem to keep in theshadow--now I come to think of it--and his cap--he wore a cap--waspulled well over his face--and the collar of his coat was up to hisnose. It was raining so, I didn't really see him properly. I saw theother one better--the one who has been murdered."
But the rotund _gardiens_ had had enough of this. Moreover, they wouldhear all about it at full length presently. As for the crowd--it hadno business to know too much.
They hustled the excited driver back on to his box, and themselves gotinto the cab beside it--the dead man, stabbed in the neck from ear toear--the wound quite small as if it had been done with a skewer.
The _gardiens_ ordered the chauffeur to drive to the commissariat, andLouisa turned away with a slight shiver down her spine and her throatchoked with the horror of what she had only guessed.